indigenous

Infectious diseases expert and epidemiologist Dr Ben Cowie explains why viral hepatitis is fast becoming a hidden epidemic with significant public health consequences. Most people with chronic hepatitis types B and C aren't even aware they have the diseases as they show no obvious symptoms or signs, yet they risk severe illness or liver damage. So how is the global health community targeting hepatitis, and how to to grow awareness in a largely unsuspecting public? Presented by Dr Andi Horvath.

Ecologist Prof. Peter Vitousek explores how living in the Anthropocene, a time in which human activity has become the key driver of planetary health, will force us to make our way with diminished natural resources. Peter also asks what we can learn from the historical experience of Pacific Islanders, whose cultural and agricultural practices were shaped by a profound understanding that their immediate horizons were in fact the very limits of their worlds. Presented by Dr Andi Horvath.

Environmental law researcher Erin O'Donnell and economist Julia Talbot-Jones explain what's behind recent moves to give legal personhood to rivers in India, New Zealand and elsewhere. With philosophical roots going back decades, new legal and legislative developments granting personhood to nature seek both to recognise indigenous or religious claims as well as provide new avenues for environmental protection. But what does this mean, and how will giving rights to nature be enforced? Can rivers now bring lawsuits, and can we, in turn, sue them? Presented by Lynne Haultain.

Is extreme poverty merely evidence of failed economic policy or should it also be seen as a breach of human rights? Legal scholar and UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston argues that the conversation around human rights has yet to take seriously how the world's very poor are excluded from a life of dignity -- underpinned by access to education, basic health care and housing -- while extreme inequality is itself in part sustained by the blocking of civil and political rights by elites. Presented by Peter Mares.